In 1993, I moved to Thailand with my family to join SeaCanoe Thailand, a pioneering ecotourism business based in Phuket. This was our promotion video from 1997. (That’s me doing the voice-over). Camera and script by John Gray. Watch our Lao River Adventures where we made the first tourism exploration to the Kong Lor Cave here.
Bird Nests, Caves, Guns and Corruption. The story of SeaCanoe, the Bird’s Nest concession holders, the National Park and a shooting on the steps of the company’s office here.
Phuket had a small community of foreigners in those days.
One of the fun things that I did was reading the English language news for Thai Channel 11.
I was also a part time guest lecturer at the Prince of Songkla University Faculty of Hospitality and Tourism at their Phuket campus.
In 1998, I set up a tourism consultancy working with local businesses and regional tourism authorities in the Mekong region.
We focused travel on destination websites in partnership with the public sector – the Visit Laos Years 1999 – 2000 here. My business was acquired by Asia Web Direct (phuket.com) and is now part of Expedia.